---
title: And Manus bent the sword thrice across his knee but he could not bre… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And Manus bent the sword thrice across his knee but he could not break it. Who acts: Manus. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 15, sentence 126

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And Manus bent the sword thrice across his knee but he could not break it.

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**Who acts:** Manus · **What happens:** bend, not break · **To what, where:** sword thrice, knee, thrice

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Manus), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3027:15:126
# text = And Manus bent the sword thrice across his knee but he could not break it.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Manus	Manus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	bent	bend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	thrice	thrice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	across	across	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	knee	knee	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bend** | past | Manus | the sword thrice |  | Manus's knee |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent thrice=Material |
| 2 | **not** **break** | could | Manus | thrice |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Patient |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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